Subscribe
Categories
Random Posts
- Indra’s Neti-Neti: chantey (shanty)We sail the sea that has no shore, with just a raft beneath us; we float until we can no more and our resources fail …
- Question Posted to the Ishmael CommunityPosted this evening to the Ishmael Community, a web community devoted to the principles set forth by Daniel Quinn in his books Ishmael, The Story …
- What is the Secret Song?What is secret song that the whole world hums underneath its breath, too soft to hear unless you sit in silence, in the dark and …
- Indra’s Neti-Neti: chantey (shanty)
Recent Comments
- Christine on What happened to the theater?
- Christine on Conversate.
- Christine on Unbound
- Randall Simpson on It Ain’t What It Ain’t
Meta
Author Archives: JRL
The End of the World: sonnet (English)
Perhaps the world will end tomorrow night.
With so few sane in charge, that would make sense.
Besides, if the Cassandras have it right,
it’s way past time for sitting on the fence,
pretending that our waking up at last
can make a whit of difference to the tide. Continue reading
Posted in Lines
Tagged #BookofForms, apocalypse, beginnings, endings, English sonnet, impermanence, poetic forms, Shakespearean sonnet, sonnet, survival, worry
Leave a comment
A Soul in Cement: sonnet (sonetto rispetto)
I will not live my whole life just to spite
one more imagined evil at my door,
some cloud determined to block out my light,
or leave my spirit destitute. No more.
Why be a tool for either left or right,
when a binary choice is still piss-poor?
You’re always wrong when you pick just one side,
and where you end depends on how you ride. Continue reading
Posted in Lines
Tagged #BookofForms, impermanence, life, poetic forms, purpose, sonetto rispetto, sonnet, truth
Leave a comment
The Ears Have It: sonnet (envelope)
Watch the eyes. It’s said they never lie,
and yet so much deception starts with seeing,
building illusions that soon end up being
so real to us we never question why
we do the things we do, and act as though
there so little choice but wait to die,
imagining some future by-and-by
when life no longer simply tells us no. Continue reading
Posted in Lines
Tagged #BookofForms, deception, envelope sonnet, hearing, illusion, poetic forms, seeing, sonnet
Leave a comment
The Fire Game: sonnet (Italian)
The fire may turn to embers as we age,
its bright hot essence slowly turned to ash.
Our brave ideals disintegrate so fast,
and our youth’s passion slips to smoldering rage.
Perhaps that’s how we see beyond the cage
that we dismissed back then as balderdash,
imagining our noble, rebel clash
as more than just a temporary stage. Continue reading
Posted in Lines
Tagged #BookofForms, aging, games, illusion, Italian sonnet, Petrarchan sonnet, poetic forms, sonnet, winning
Leave a comment
Talking Heads: sonnet (Sicilian)
Who in the world do we believe we are,
imagining our words alone suffice
to change the future’s course or shift our stars?
How much can you expect for that small price?
So little fuel will take us just so far.
What’s worth achieving takes some sacrifice;
the answer is never a lower bar,
unless your goal is a fool’s paradise. Continue reading
Posted in Lines
Tagged #BookofForms, action, follow-through, meaning, poetic forms, purpose, Sicilian sonnet, sonnet, words
Leave a comment
The Unbound Wheel: sestina
The wheel has come unbound, our heading lost.
No one is in command who knows the way.
What good is it to offer thoughts and prayers
when power tells us action is no use,
and only seeks to satisfy itself.
The ocean does not classify its dead. Continue reading
Posted in Lines
Tagged #BookofForms, destination, direction, fate, French verse forms, journeys, poetic forms, sestina, voyages
Leave a comment
The Great Pretender: sestet
Can you pretend that all is going well,
that your imagined life is here and now,
and what you picture in your mind as hell
strikes only those you hate and fear, somehow?
What will it take to break that noxious spell?
How much injustice can your soul allow? Continue reading
Posted in Lines
Tagged #BookofForms, awareness, illusion, loss, poetic forms, pretending, selfishness, seset, short-sightedness
Leave a comment